Washington: US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies and an influential voice on American foreign policy, has died after what his office described as a “brief and sudden illness”. He was 71.
Graham, who represented South Carolina in the Senate for more than two decades, was among the Republican Party’s most outspoken supporters of Ukraine in its war against Russia and a leading advocate of tougher sanctions on Moscow.
Despite a bitter rivalry with Trump during the 2016 Republican presidential campaign, he went on to become one of his closest political allies.
He had just returned from Kyiv, where he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. There were no known health concerns ahead of his trip.
In a social media post marking the senator’s death, Trump said Graham was a “true American Patriot”.
While Trump and many of his allies have been lukewarm in their support for Ukraine and have taken a more conciliatory tone towards Russia, Graham was a staunch supporter of arming Kyiv and applying sanctions against Moscow.
In his most recent trip to the country, Graham was working on a version of the Russia sanctions bill, which he said would give “tools to President Trump to end this war”.
Zelensky said he was “deeply saddened” by the news of the senator’s death.
